Get a head start with a 2024 Business Plan
Hello there, Tony Smith here with another edition of Mike Ferry TV. This is the week of September 25th, and I was excited. I’m just finishing up day three of our new Action Workshop that we’ve been presenting here in Los Angeles, California. Mike asked me to spend a little time on this Mike Ferry TV video today. So obviously when you come out of a group of great agents your eyes are all wide open, they’re ready to learn, they’re ready to grow, they’re ready to take their business to the next level. We are certainly inspired to hope that you do that as well. So I want to start with a question. How often have you heard Mike Ferry say that selling Real Estate is simple? It’s just not easy. Okay. I don’t know if the technology is helping. I don’t know if it’s hurting at times, but doesn’t it seem like things get more and more and more complicated as time goes on at the same time, Mike Ferry and The Mike Ferry Organization are constantly trying to get you to simplify things and make it a little more clearer, a bit less complicated, so you can move forward.
“It is a very simple business. It’s just not easy.”
It is a very simple business. It’s just not easy. Think about it. We have to go find sellers each day that want to buy and sell. We have to follow up on those seller leads that we get. We have to prequalify those leads in depth. We have to learn how to present daily. We have to handle their objections. We have to close for the signature and somehow we have to learn how to start the whole process over day in and day out, don’t we? Pretty simple. Where are you making it? Complicated.
Well, here we are today and we’ve got the last week of September coming into the fourth quarter of 2023. There’s a lot of stuff that we need to get accomplished between now and the end of the year. So what I wrote down is a little series of thoughts that I would like to not even thoughts. There’s a little series of assignments that I would ask you to do this week to get yourself set up for the fourth quarter.
Now, I don’t know. You can only answer this for yourself. How important is your production in the fourth quarter of 2023? Would you like to have an incredible holiday season? Would you like to kick off 2024 with a bang or would you like to just stay where you are? Okay, so here are some thoughts that I put down for us. Okay.
1) Create your Q4 Schedule
Decide exactly what days you will work between now and the end of the year. There seems to be a lot of confusion. Agents can’t decide. Am I working? Am I not? Am I on vacation? Am I not? Which days am I taking off or holidays? Thanksgiving, Halloween, Christmas, all that stuff. And if you can certainly get clear for yourself, the days you’re working and the days you’re not. Mike has said for years in almost every industry besides Real Estate, everybody has to work through a day, clear through a couple of of days for Thanksgiving off, and then clear through the 23rd, and 24th of December for the holidays. What are your work days? I would ask you to decide, get clear, tell the people around you, and make sure that they’re absolutely clear on the days you plan on working. That’s one.
2) Set aggressive and specific goals for Q4
Two, set aggressive, specific production goals for the rest of the year. How many listings will you commit to taking? How many buyer sales will you commit to making? How many listings sold will you do? How many closed escrows will you have and how much income will you generate for yourself between now and the end of the year? Pretty simple. Make them very specific and very clear.
3) Create your prospecting plan.
The third thing I wrote on the list outline for yourself is a very strong prospecting plan. From now to the end of the year, how many contacts will I make each day? We already decided how many days I’m going to work, How many contacts do I plan on making each day? How many hours will I dedicate to prospecting each day for the rest of the year? Am I going to work any evenings each week? How about a couple of Saturdays a month for the next 90 days? Outline for yourself a very specific prospecting plan. Do you need to include, you know, the sources that you plan on calling? You know, are you going to add Expireds and FSBOs? Are you going to add a source? I would write out in detail what kind of prospecting I was going to do, and I would tell everyone around me what it was.
4) 90-Day Past Client and Center of Influence contact plan
Number four on the list, design for yourself, a 90-day past client and center of influence little mini plan. So what if you’re just to take, you know, okay, what am I going to get done over the next 90 days? How many people do I need to add to my database? Will I contact everybody? Are there any people in my database that I need to see personally? You know, do I have my postcard set ready to go out for the fourth quarter? What special things am I going to do? Christmas cards? I don’t know. But could you outline for yourself very specifically what you’re going to do with your past client and center of influence over the next 90 days? I think that would be smart.
5) Scrup all of your current Real Estate Leads
Number five, go through every lead you have now. If I were there with you today, I would ask you to go through every single lead you have and ask them the simple two questions. Do you still have to get that home of yours sold? Or if they’re a buyer, do you still have to buy a home? And then when can we meet this week to get it started? Does it make sense to get through and clean up and clear out and address all the leads you’ve accumulated? We think so. Okay. We also know that when it comes to leads, there is a little likelihood that you might build up a few leads throughout the rest of this year that want to do something a little later. That’s a little normal. It’s okay if that happens, but we certainly don’t want to drag a bunch of what I would call old or dead leads into the fourth quarter. Let’s clean them all up and get started.
6) Read the “11 Reasons to List During the Holidays” Report
I wrote down this. I don’t know if you’ve seen the report if you have some of you’ve been around a long time. It’s time to go to MikeFerry.com go to our resources page, go to our reports page, and download Mike Ferry Report the “11 Reasons to List During the Holidays.” Okay. It seems like it comes sooner and sooner every single year that people start holidays, right? It starts now. Is it Labor Day that the holidays start? I hope not. But the reality is people are going to start objecting and want to wait till the next year. I would read those “11 Reasons to List During the Holidays“, every single day from now through the end of the year and start learning how to deliver those to the clients, the prospects, and the customers that you encounter who are trying to put you off for after the holidays. There are a lot of reasons why they should be listed now. Okay, so download the report and start reading it. Okay.
7) Start Filling in your business plan
Number seven I wrote down. Okay, set up for creating your 2024 business plan. Okay. Now we know that October is the month that in The Mike Ferry Organization, we ask you to start putting together your business plan. Mike Ferry if he had his way, he would like everybody to have their plan in the hands of their Coach, in the hands of their spouse, their broker, their manager, and have that plan fully completed by mid-October, end of October at the very latest. But do you need to set yourself up for that? Do you need to make a couple of appointments in your calendar over the next couple, or three weeks to sit down and pencil out your business plan, put it in writing, and get it set? There are several steps you have to take. You have to put that in your calendar so you can get your plan set and get done. Does it seem like it makes sense now to work on a really strong 15-month plan? Right. If you buckle down for the last three months of 2023 and have a really strong plan for 2024, is that the way to finish strong and start fast? Of course. So we have to set ourselves up for our business plan. I would make those appointments in my schedule right away.
8) Create a 90-day accountability plan
Number eight, decide how you will be held accountable for the next 90 days. I would ask you over the next 24 to 48 hours to sit down and get clear on how you would like to be held accountable. What do you need to be held accountable for? Is it to show up at work on time? Is it to role-play in practice? Is it to your prospecting? And I would set up some strong, strong, strong accountabilities for the next 90 days. You know, there’s a lot of distractions that come around this time of year. Everybody’s pulling at you in different directions. If you can box yourself in with some real strong accountability for yourself, then those distractions won’t pull you off track. Set up your accountability. I know you can do that real soon.
10) Create some exciting goals for yourself
And then number ten, create some exciting goals for yourself for the holiday season. We know that if you can set up some strong, exciting, fun goals to reward yourself, reward your staff, reward your family, reward the people around you for the hard work that you’re going to do over the next 90 days. If you can see that ahead of you and you’re excited about it, then you’ll work harder leading up to the holiday season when it does turn holidays. So set some goals, and make it spectacular.
One thing we know is the market is moving in a direction that ultimately ends up supporting Mike Ferry-trained agents. You should have seen the agents in the class today all rubbing their hands together when they started to see the market is shifting in our direction. Do clients need more professionalism? Yes. Do they need an agent now that knows what they’re doing? Yes. Do they need an agent that knows how to price the property right from the start? Yes. Are they looking for solutions? Of course. And we believe that it’s not that hard for you to become the right agent for the job if you’re not already.
Are you set up to take full advantage of this? I hope so. The fourth quarter is right around the corner, so I’ve given you a list of what, eight, nine, and ten little steps that I would like to ask that you take this week. So when the fourth quarter comes and starts next week, you’re completely set and ready to go. Okay. As always, thanks for allowing me to spend a little time with you on Mike Ferry TV. We look forward to seeing you in future episodes. Thanks for your time.
